McConnell, Paul try to unify Ky. GOP

Mitch McConnell hasn’t spoken to Matt Bevin since primary night — but he’s convinced that Bevin voters will come home to Team Mitch in November.

Senate Minority Leader McConnell (R-Ky.) appeared alongside conservative icon Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) at a Friday presser in Louisville to tout party unity, hoping to heal the Kentucky GOP’s wounds incurred during a vicious primary contest between Bevin and McConnell, in which the insurgent Bevin received the backing of 35 percent of Republican voters.

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Bevin has not endorsed McConnell and said earlier this week the senator will “have a hard time” defeating Democratic candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes. At this point he will only say he won’t support a Democrat this fall.

But McConnell used the example of Paul, who defeated McConnell’s preferred candidate in the Senate primary in 2010, Trey Grayson, to predict that Kentucky Republicans will rally around the GOP leader in November when faced with a choice between him and Grimes.

“He has indicated pretty forcefully that he won’t support” Grimes, McConnell said of Bevin. “By the time Rand got to the general election he got 91 percent of the votes.”

Paul plans to hit the campaign trail hard for McConnell this fall and said he hopes to play the same role in 2014 that McConnell played in 2010: As a Republican uniter after a nasty intraparty conflict.

“We’re excited to have the Republican Party all pulling together for our nominee,” Paul said. “I think the party will pull together quickly.”

Paul also said that while he and McConnell occasionally disagree, he’s going to work a lot more closely with McConnell in 2015 than he would with a potential Sen. Grimes.

“Are we exactly the same? No, we’re a little bit different,” Rand said, touting that he and McConnell vote together nearly 90 percent of the time. “I might agree with her 10 percent of the time.”

Via a press release Friday, Grimes sent an “open letter” to the 40 percent of Kentucky Republicans who did not vote for McConnell on Tuesday, insisting she shares the same “fundamental views and important goals” of most Republicans: Cutting spending, balancing the budget and telling Washington to help Kentuckians or get out of the way.

“I hope she’ll spend all of her time to get Republicans to vote for her. That’s a great expenditure of her money and her time,” McConnell quipped.

On Friday afternoon, Bevin responded to Grimes in a statement, questioning her commitment to cutting spending and balancing the budget.

”Kentucky and America do need real change. The change we need, however, is very different from the proposed platform of government expansion that I have seen from your campaign thus far,” Bevin said.

McConnell said he hoped to soon debate Grimes with “no notes, no props, none of you guys either,” referring to the Bluegrass State’s political press corps. He said the debate should be just McConnell, Grimes and a timekeeper.

“I think that’s the way you ought to have a debate,” McConnell said. “I don’t think we ought to have a joint press conference.”

The two candidates have not yet agreed to terms of the debate schedule this year.